1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the field of illumination devices for illuminating an ambient environment. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a laser spotlight system which illuminates an ambient environment while minimizing the risk of causing irreversible eye damage when gazed upon. Accordingly, the general objects of the present invention are to provide novel and improved methods and apparatus of such character.
2. Description of the Related Art
Law enforcement vehicles have had spotlights for many years. Such spotlights are used for a wide variety of functions, including searching. Searching can be the simple identification of house numbers at night while responding to a call for assistance, or can be a search for an individual or individuals under low light or nighttime conditions. Helicopter spotlights are commonly used to track individuals or vehicles fleeing from law enforcement under nighttime conditions. Once located, spotlights also provide the illumination needed to identify individuals or vehicles under low light or nighttime conditions. Spotlights are most effective on mobile ground vehicles because of the higher intensity available. Helicopters provide a wider area coverage, but the illumination intensity is significantly reduced because of the longer distances involved. Spotlights are also often used to provide low light level or nighttime illumination of crime scenes, accidents, or the routine checking of vehicles pulled over by law enforcement officials.
Conventional spotlights produce a beam that is easily directed without moving the vehicle and is relatively bright when compared to the beam produced by a flashlight. However, the power of such standard spotlights is limited and therefore the intensity and range of the light produced is limited. This limitation is especially significant when using the spotlight to disorient and confuse suspects since the amount of light that is perceived by the suspect must be relatively high to produce the desired effect.
Improvements to the spotlight have been made through the incorporation of modern high brightness sources, such as halogen lamps, or by more sophisticated reflector designs. However, the brightness of conventional incoherent light sources is limited. Such light sources may be collimated to obtain high intensity on target only over very short distances. By comparison, modern laser sources offer orders of magnitude more brightness at a given range.
Some inroads have been made in applying laser technology to portable illumination devices in limited areas. For example, laser guns are used to play laser tag, a recreational paramilitary game utilizing low-power laser guns as mock weapons. Additionally, low-power laser penlights have become commercially available. Such penlights utilize small semi-conductor red-diode lasers or diode-pumped green lasers powered by batteries to produce a very fine beam to be used as a pointer during presentations, etc. One major drawback of such uses of lasers has been that the laser beam emitted by such low-power devices has the potential to produce irreversible eye damage if a person gazes directly into the light source. Thus, these devices are not "eyesafe." Naturally, this problem will become exacerbated as attempts are made to increase the output power of such devices. Another significant limitation associated with such portable laser emitting devices is that they have, to date, been unable to produce nearly as much light as comparably sized incandescent lights. Accordingly, their lack of versatility and overall poor performance has limited their use to highly specialized areas such as those described above.